438 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
and they efteem effort in converfation a vain toil. The raillery 
and repartee of the Occidentals is, among them, fupplied (it 
muft be allowed very inadequately) by the Meddahsy ftory- 
tellers, and profefled jokers. 
Human life in the Eaft is expofed to a variety of cafualties. 
Peftilence, famine, tyranny, all confpire to diminifh its fecurity. 
It is natural to fet a fmaller value on any advantage, in propor- 
tion to the facility of privation. Hence the Orientals are not 
much difturbed at the thoughts of death, but refign life without 
a figh. The mind is tortured when the bloffoms of hope are 
fuddenly torn from it ; but their gradual decay is not incornpa- 
tible with a kind of tranquillity. 
The European, more diffatisfied with the prefent, and only 
fupported by the hope of what is to come, attached beyond 
meafure to the advantages which his anxieties have been pro- 
longed to acquire, has already, even at an early age, fixed to 
himfelf a period, fhort of which he thinks it hard and unjujl to 
be deprived of life. 
Concerning paft events the fatalift is confoled by refleding, 
that nothing he could have done would have altered the immut- 
able order of things, and that his efforts before would have been 
as vain as his regret now is. This idea, indeed, is perhaps not 
deftitute of ill effects, but it furely produces fome good. If, 
by perfuading them that the evils which they fuffer are un- 
avoidable, it prevent them from endeavouring to avoid them, 
it 
